The best reason for
a home garden is the delicious flavor of a summer tomato
picked fresh from your own vine.
picked fresh from your own vine.
There is a
mysterious thing about a homegrown tomato that is different from the
store-bought versions. It is that
special aroma and taste that occurs only when the fruit is picked and kept at
the plant's ideal growing temperature.
The perfect temperature to keep a tomato living so that it sweetens and
continues to ripen is 65°F to 85° F in an open oxygen-rich location.
Commercial tomato
growers have tried to convince us that the red balls that appear in most
grocery stores are "fresh" tomatoes. Often they are picked while
still green and tasteless. Usually packed in plastic and cellophane and gassed
with ethylene gas to redden their skins on their trip to the northern markets.
Now we have
greenhouse-grown fruit that has been raised under grow lights so they will turn
color and are left on the vine in clusters.
This again is an illusion to convince the buyer that this is a
vine-fresh product. Better, but still
missing something.
Now that genetic
engineering has improved the shelf life
of tomatoes, they can remain in a kind of suspended animation for several weeks
or even up to a month without turning to mush.
However.....they're still missing something. That something is aroma, flavor and
nutrients!
I have to admit that some of the grape tomato
varieties are sweet, but they still don't have that elusive taste of a
homegrown tomato. In the winter I buy
them and dream of summer when I can have a truly delectable tomato right off my
own tomato plant.
This year with our
hot weather, the tomatoes have done well. I was very stringent about keeping them
watered and they are looking wonderful.
As you see in the photos below, my tomatoes are planted in large pots. I decided that since sunlight is at a premium and the tomatoes could not compete with my five foot tall Bee Balm (monarda) that this would give them a better chance of survival. This places the plants about two feet higher than the surrounding flowers. So far, so good! We should have some ripe ones in just a few days. I can't wait for a good old fashioned BLT
sandwich!
A "Traveling Onion" (on left) tries to plant it's new bulbs in the tomato pot. A baseball size tomato showing color! |
This year the
varieties I am growing are Celebrity and Better Boy. Last year I grew an
heirloom Brandywine and while they were really delicious, I ended up with less
than a dozen tomatoes. This years
harvest is going to be much better! I usually use them up fresh, but
occasionally I will freeze them whole. I
just throw them in a plastic zip bag and they go right into the freezer. I use them within a few months to make pasta sauce.
While I was reading up on tomatoes for this post, I found the cute quote below.
"Only
two things
that money
can't buy:
That's true love
and
That's true love
and
homegrown
tomatoes."
Guy Clark